


Have Faith, It Does Get Better

by Castelau



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character meeting their younger self, Gen, M/M, Time Travel, mentions of married Sheith, time paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 05:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16402409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castelau/pseuds/Castelau
Summary: A space-time anomaly offers Keith a rare opportunity to speak to his younger self. Even if it isn't remembered, it might bring him some solace.





	Have Faith, It Does Get Better

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really unwell with a fever and got this idea stuck in my head, so if bits of it seem to not quite make sense, well, that's why. Un-beta'd as always.

  
  
At first he was blinded by a bright light, the space around him lurching and twisting before his feet hit solid ground. Just what had that been?  
If anything, it was reminiscent of the flashes that he had encountered when traversing the quantum abyss, similarly jarring and confusing to all of his senses.  
  
Then, the far too familiar heat of the desert hit his face, the air he was breathing sluggishly thick as it had been baked by the inescapable sun. No… How? How was this possible?  
Actually… to quote Shiro, this was just another bit of cosmic bullshit that had no logical explanation, wasn’t it?  
  
Keith opened his eyes, lowering his arms from where they had instinctively come up to protect his face.  
Oh no.  
He recognised where he was and instantly a wave of panic came over him. Of all the places and times that the universe could dump him, this was one of the worst.  
  
Keith’s armour was poorly suited for the heat of the Arizona desert and he tugged off his gauntlets to try and avoid instantly overheating. He wasn’t quite sure how long he’d be here but…  
He sighed and peered into the harsh sunlight until he spotted just what he had expected to see, the burnt wreckage of his old home and standing beside it, the shack that he had lived in for some years. Might as well go have a look for nostalgia’s sake.  
  
The instant his hand touched the door handle, Keith realised that he was not alone. Of course he wasn’t and he realised with a surge of frustration that he should have guessed that he had moved in time as well as space due to the fact that the wreckage from the fire was still left standing. He’d broken it all down back when he’d been kicked out of the Garrison and had ended up back in the only place he had left. So, that meant that time wise he was somewhere in-between seven and seventeen in this timeline.  
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and Keith slowly, so as not to spook the person behind him, turned around.  
  
His eyes met an identical pair, set in a grubby, skinny face and half covered by an unruly mop of black hair. The boy was holding up a shotgun that he had absolutely no hope of using without knocking himself over with the recoil, but there was a familiar light in his eyes that spoke of his readiness to fight to his last breath, no matter what the cost.  
With a jolt of something precisely halfway between deja vu and vertigo, Keith realised that he was face to face with his thirteen year old self.  
  
No way…  
  
Of all the cruel tricks to play on him, this had to be one of the worst that the universe could come up with.  
The words _cosmic bullshit_ came to mind once more.  
  
Keith put his hands up to show that he was unarmed before pulling off his helmet.  
Instantly, his younger self’s eyes widened and the gun dropped. “W-who are you?”  
  
“I’m…” Keith searched for an answer that would even vaguely make sense, in vain. “It’s a long story.”  
  
“Are you related to my pop?” The boy asked and Keith’s heart broke for the millionth time over at hearing the desperate hope in his voice.  
  
Of course.  
At thirteen, Keith’s life problems had been unbearable and more than once he had wondered if he would ever make more of himself. If it was worth living through the daily hell of the orphanage.  
He’d been kicked out of school for no good reason and warned that if he didn’t tread more carefully, he’d be sent off to juvie. Of course, his response to that had been to slash his miserable ineffective bastard of a social worker’s tires before stealing a hoverbike and running away to here in the desert. He’d have given anything for a relative to crawl out of the woodwork and take him on.  
  
“In a way.” Keith placed his helmet down on the nearest window sill before sighing. “It’s very complicated, can we sit and talk?”  
  
——————————  
  
Soon enough, they were sat on the porch with two tall glasses of water. Keith had realised with some amusement after the first sip how he had forgotten the gritty, slightly stale taste of the water brought up from the local well. It was just one of those things that a person tended to forget until tasting it once again and it brought so many memories flooding to his mind.  
  
“So who exactly are you?” The younger asked, kicking his feet as he sipped at his water.  
  
“Would you believe me if I said I’m from the future?” Keith had removed his bracers and pushed his sleeves up to try and sweat a bit less, even in the relative shade of the porch deck.  
“So time travel is possible?”  
“Of sorts. It’s not something people can control.”  
“You didn’t mean to end up here then?” His younger self’s face fell instantly, realising that that meant that nobody was coming to take him away.  
“No. But the universe works in mysterious ways. One second I was doing repairs on my ship and the next I was here.”  
  
He just knew, and sure enough, the boy’s ears pricked up at the mention of a ship. “You’re a pilot?”  
“I am.”  
“I wanna be a pilot when I’m older.” The boy’s expression grew distant. “I want to see the stars up close one day.”  
“Trust me, you will.” Keith let slip before he could think better of it and the boy frowned.  
“How do you know that?”  
  
Well, the cat was out of the bag, so he might as well get it over with. Part of Keith wondered if his younger self would get to keep the memories of this encounter. “I’m… You know I said I’m from the future, right?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m you. I’m you in ten years time.”  
  
There was a sharp intake of breath and he felt eyes on him, examining him as if to take in as much of what he would be in the future. The red paladin armour, the wicked scar across his cheek and the gold band around his ring finger. It had to be a lot to take in, three obvious signs of events that would happen to him.  
“Am I happy?” Younger Keith asks with a soft, fragile tone.  
That was something he could answer without a moment’s hesitation. “More than you can even imagine.”  
“Am I ever not happy? When do things start to get better?”  
  
Keith put his hands up, shaking his head. “I can’t tell you exactly when things get better as an empirical date but… there are times you’ll be happy and times where you’ll wonder if it was ever worth opening up to people. It’s worth it though, for one person at least.”  
  
The gold band on his finger glinted dully and he could see that it was being eyed warily. “You… I… We get married?”  
“You’re going to meet a person.” Keith knew he was likely breaking every fantasised time travel rule right now but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “You’re going to meet a person who believes in you and loves you and you’ll never want to let them go. They’re your soulmate and forces beyond anyones control will keep you at each others side. You’re both prepared to die for each other a hundred times over and the universe rewards that dedication by keeping you at each others sides no matter what happens.”  
  
He dropped his hand, playing with the ring that brought out so many memories. He wished he could tell his younger self just how soon he’d meet that person and how much better things would get once they were at his side. It felt like an unbreakable rule though, no matter how much he wanted to tell him who would turn his life around.  
  
The boy was quiet for a long moment then, just staring at the ring as if that held all the answers to his life problems. In a way, he probably wasn’t wrong, though there were a million other symbols Keith could think of that meant just as much.  
  
“Does this mean I grow up alone?” He finally asks, back to sounding so fragile again.  
  
“Yes, but…” Keith pulls his blade out from its sheath at his hip and showed it to his younger self. “You’re going to find family one day, and it’s going to be where you least expected it.”  
  
Before he could say a word more, the world started to grow brighter around him and Keith swore, realising that this was probably the end of his time in the past.  
He stood, grabbing his helmet and shoving it back over his head before doing the same with the rest of his armour.  
“Where are you going?”  
“I… I have to leave now but…” He wrapped the boy in an impulsive hug before stepping back. “Stay strong. You’re going to be amazing, but you have to keep on fighting even when everything seems hopeless.”  
  
The boy yelled something back at him, but it was lost as for the second time in less than ten minutes, Keith’s surroundings tore themselves apart and rematerialised as Black’s cockpit.  
  
\--------------  
  
“KEITH!” A voice yelled down his comms, loud enough that he thought it was going to burst his eardrums.  
“I’m here. I’m here guys.” He hurried to respond, putting his hands on the controls and bringing his lion up to face the others once more.  
“You vanished on us.” Shiro said then, worry still evident in his tone although far less frantic than he had been a second ago.  
  
“I’m sorry. Turns out, I had somewhere important to be.”


End file.
